


Good enough for government work

by acaramelmacchiato



Category: Captain America (Movies), The X-Files
Genre: Gen, I'm Sorry, driving in the right direction is tough, dulles is far from stuff, if you want to look american you gotta have pictures of eagles on your stuff, in fact no superspies get along, jokety jokez, no I don't know how to characterize the Winter Soldier like even a little, not all superspies get along, the eighties were weird, there are superspies and then there are just spies, there is no GRU ice cream social let's get that clear
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-14
Updated: 2013-02-14
Packaged: 2017-11-29 05:09:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/683159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acaramelmacchiato/pseuds/acaramelmacchiato
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One of several inconveniences of being removed from cryogenic stasis every few years is that, in non-combat scenarios, the Winter Soldier is not competent to drive himself in anything more than an M-21 Volga. (In 1983, the Winter Soldier runs an errand in D.C., where he meets a young illegal resident spy named Alex Krycek. They do not get along, even a little.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Good enough for government work

 

 

He deplanes at Dulles International with a driver waiting for him, furnished with suspicious generosity by the Fourth Department. He finds his man leaning against the hood of a dark sedan, annoyingly costumed in the local gear: sunglasses and jeans, cigarette burning to the filter in his fingers.

One of several inconveniences of being removed from cryogenic stasis every few years is that, in non-combat scenarios, the Winter Soldier is not competent to drive himself in anything more than an M-21 Volga.

It is 1983. And this young spy grabbing his duffel bag, in the process of grinning, popping the trunk and flipping open the passenger-side door, is telegraphing so much innocent nonchalance that they should be arrested just for trying too hard.

“Krycek,” he says, tossing the duffel into the trunk. “Alex Krycek,” and the Winter Soldier almost roles his eyes at this openness. “Oh come on, it’s NTK,” Krycek continues, without losing the grin. “Got to shout my name if you need me to pull over for a soda or something. So what brings you into town?”

“Same question.”  
  
“Oh,” says Krycek. “Okay. I’m here for a while. Sort of a long-term…” he makes a confusing circular gesture.

Subtlety is a spy’s primary virtue, but in this car alone there’s a New York Yankees baseball cap on the dashboard, an American flag patch on the backpack, and an eagle keychain hanging from the ignition.

He gets in the car. To sit in the passenger seat he has to throw an aging Jansport backpack (heavy with books like “The Laws of Discursive Thought”) into the back.

“What?” says Krycek.

“You’re seriously a spy?”

Krycek’s snaps back: “Look, I’m no Captain America, but I’ll do as an American. And I’m no Belov, but here I am, _nelegal'nye rezidenty._ Good enough for government work, you know? Case closed, you’re being an asshole.”

They are in America now, it is 1983; he should be in his sixties. Now even the GRU agents pose as college freshmen, no older than children and no more cautious. He feels grouchy and disoriented: the clock has rolled back nine hours since Leningrad and forward four years since he last saw daylight.

They peel out from the airport and into the bright smog of traffic.

“In one guess: Mokroye delo,” Krycek says, talking again, and apparently happy to be his own partner in conversation. He tries the word in English: “Wetwork. Obviously. But who? Not anyone actually American, or you wouldn’t be at the airport, so--”

“Don’t talk like that, you sound like a gangster,” the Winter Soldier admonishes crankily, speaking in Russian again. “In fact, we should not be discussing this at all.”

 “Who’s discussing? I’m just making conversation. So Andropov is doing some cleanup on his way out -- interesting that no one official is running this show, or at least driving this car, not the KGB, by the way, and hmm, incidentally, Oleg Kalugin is in town.”

At this denouement, Krycek turns to the passenger seat with a very self-satisfied smile.

“I’m not joking around, kid, you’ll put yourself in danger.”  
  
“I’m not already? Name of the game, right? Boredom punctuated by dangerous chauffeuring assignments and obviously the GRU abroad ice cream social. That’s a joke. We don’t have that,” He peels his eyes from the road for a double take. “Tell me you didn’t believe me?”

The Winter Soldier looks out the window; wonders how long it would be to walk.

“Not in the budget,” he says, sovietsky.

Twenty minutes later, they are driving on a bridge over the Potomac.

 The American monuments are sober and composed. In front of them, memorials to Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson. Looking out at the second, something in his mind says: It is a good example of transient American values, their edited national biography and aspirations to mythology. The quotations chiseled on marble are cherry-picked to endorse the New Deal and to bowdlerize an ugly and unequal history.

He has a nuanced if cynical education on this country.

Behind them, on a hill in Arlington, is the Tomb of the Unknowns.

His understanding of this scene is incomplete, and thinking about it makes him feel stupid, like he can’t recall the facts. He knows the inscription on the monument, here rests in honored glory an American soldier known but to God.

For some reason thinking this makes him calm, though rationally he should have no feelings about these American soldiers whose names are lost and forgotten. The Winter Soldier is name enough – good enough for government work, like Krycek had said -- and anyway he’s not American.

Known but to God, some part of him thinks again, and they exit south.

The embassy is right in the middle of downtown, a drive that should have taken significantly less time. Krycek is looking a little concerned when he sees the street signs.

“We’ve gone too far south,” says the Winter Soldier.

“South of what, Moscow? Of course we have. I know what I’m doing.”

“If you’re kidnapping me there are better ways.”  
  
“I’m not -- I’m trying to avoid traffic -- you know, I don’t drive a lot. Don’t even have a car. This is my roommate’s, I’m a college student. For Pete’s sake. We’ll be up there in a couple minutes.”

The Winter Soldier sighs. A college kid who can’t drive.

In ten minutes they are taking a backward approach to the embassy of the Soviet Union.

“Are we going in?” he asks, when Krycek pokes the car around, like he’s thinking of parking on the street.

“Why don’t I just drop you off,” he says.

“Why don’t you drive me to the damn door?” asks the Winter Soldier.

Krycek looks at the steering wheel. “I’m -- I have an internship. With the embassy. I shouldn’t be here in jeans.”

The Winter Soldier clenches his fist.

Krycek is defensive: “Listen, buddy, they told me to have you here by noon and it’s ten to – I think you can walk down the block in ten minutes. So what is your problem?”

His problem is this: One day, this kid Krycek will not be young anymore. He won’t recognize the world he lives in -- and he’ll cash out. Write his book.

And a year later, the Winter Soldier will be called back. And years after that. And again. Again.

Again. And again.

The Winter Soldier cannot ever come in from the cold; it is not his prerogative.

He eyes the Yankees cap and says: “Where is it you’re saying you’re from?”

“Uhm,” Krycek looks confused by the non sequitur. “Brooklyn. So listen, asshole --"

Brooklyn.

“Just let me out.”

And he wishes his own weariness on this young, arrogant spy. One arm and nowhere to go, disoriented and so tired, stuck in a car with someone who can barely park.

Despite all his training, the Winter Soldier has always been very slightly petty.

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. Yes, everything I know about the 80s I learned from Top Gun. 
> 
> 2\. GAZ's M-21Volga was produced in the late 50s/early 60s (sez wiki). Presumably somewhere along the way someone decided that driving a regular car wasn't an efficient use of the Winter Soldier's time, so he doesn't know that outside rear-view mirrors are a thing. 
> 
> 3\. People in the 80s loved soda, right? Woo yay soda so fun. 
> 
> 4\. Suspend your disbelief for a moment and pretend that spies have very frank water cooler conversations about being spies. ("The next person who explodes a burrito in the spy breakroom microwave is going to get a staff-wide spy email from SPY HR")
> 
> 5\. The Fourth Department (the fourth directorate of the Red Army) eventually ~became the GRU, but the Winter Soldier is all old fashioned and not hip and stuff, because of the cryogenic stasis. Despite being from Brooklyn #ohswish
> 
> 6\. Belov as in, Aleksandr Belov from the 1968 movie The Shield and the Sword. Also totally how Krycek sees himself, but plus eventually aliens.
> 
> 7\. Nelegal'nye rezidenty, illegal resident spy, the most unreasonable type of spy for anyone to be. But the embassy internship thing is first, not a legitimate thing that exists and second, maybe a sweet attempt to try to get AK on payroll. 
> 
> 8\. Oleg Kalugin is fine. He's totally fine. Don't worry! Stop worrying --! Maybe the assignment got scrapped at the last second. 
> 
> 9\. Did you know: That the USSR's embassy, in the 80s, was the building that is currently the ambassador's residence (on 16th St, instead of way up by Glover Park)? I did not, when I first wrote this, and they were even more unreasonably on the wrong bridge. But now they're just totally pathetic and can't navigate in the easiest part of D.C. to navigate. Hahah jokes. 
> 
> 10\. So, I wanted to write this because I thought it was a funny idea, but I absolutely do not know how to write the Winter Soldier in brainwashed mode (or at all let's be real), sssssssoooo instead of learning I just sort of took a shot. 
> 
> 11\. I also do not know how to write 80s College Kid Krycek. Sssssoooo once again I just kind of...did. 
> 
> 12\. Derp. That might have been a waste of your time.


End file.
